singing along with them; or if Christmas was coming, then madrigals, because the Bryns as we called them were Old Catholics and there was a Christ on the cross lurking in the shadows of the hall to tell you so. How a Welshman of all people becomes a devout Roman Catholic is beyond me, but it was in the nature of the man to be inexplicable.
Bryn and Ah Chan were ten years older than we were. Their talented daughters had long embarked on their stellar careers. Ah Chan, Bryn explained as he greeted me with his customary warmth on the doorstep, was visiting her aged mother in San Francisco:
‘The old girl scored a century last week but she’s still waiting for her bloody telegram from the Queen, or whatever she sends these days,’ he complains boisterously, as he marches me down a corridor as long as a railway carriage. ‘We applied for it like good citizens, but Her Maj is not absolutely sure she qualifies if she’s Chinese-born and lives in San Francisco. On top of which the dear old Home Office has lost her file. Tip of the iceberg, if you ask me. Whole country in spasm. First thing you notice every time you come home: nothing works, everything’s a lash-up. Same feeling we used to have in Moscow, if you remember, back in those days.’
Those days for the Cold War, the one his detractors say he’s still fighting. We are approaching the great drawing room.
‘And we’re a laughing stock to our beloved allies and neighbours, in case you haven’t noticed,’ he goes on merrily. ‘A bunch of post-imperial nostalgists who can’t run a fruit stall. Your impression too?’
I say, pretty much.
‘And your pal Shannon feels the same way, evidently. Maybe that’s his motive: shame. Thought of that? The national humiliation, trickling down, taken personally. I could buy that.’
I say, it’s a thought, although I never saw Ed as much of a nationalist.
A high-raftered ceiling, cracked leather armchairs, dark icons, primitives of the old China Trade days, untidy heaps of aged books with slips of paper wedged in them, one broken wooden ski over the fireplace and a vast silver tray for our whisky, soda and cashews.
‘Bloody ice machine’s on the blink too,’ Bryn assures me proudly. ‘It would be. Everywhere you go in America, chaps offer you ice. And we Brits can’t even make the stuff. Par for the course. Still, you don’t do ice, do you?’
He has remembered correctly. He always does. He pours two treble Scotches without asking me to say when, shoves a glass at me and with a twinkly smile waves me to sit. He sits himself and beams mischievous goodwill at me. In Moscow he was older than his years. Now youth has caught up with him in a big way. The watery blue eyes shine their semi-divine light, but it’s brighter and more directional. In Moscow, he had lived out his cover as Cultural Attaché with such brio, lecturing his bemused Russian audiences on so many erudite topics, that they were halfway to believing he was a straight diplomat. Cover, dear boy. Next to Godliness. Bryn has homilies like other people have small talk.
I ask after the family. The girls are achieving marvellously, he confirms, Annie at the Courtauld, Eliza at the London Philharmonic – yes, cello indeed, how good of me to remember – squads of grandchildren born or expected. All utterly delightful, squeeze of the eyes.
‘And Toby?’ I enquire cautiously.
‘Oh, an utter failure,’ he replies with the dismissive gusto he applies to all bad news. ‘Completely hopeless. We bought him a twenty-two-foot boat with all the trimmings, fixed him up crabbing out of Falmouth, last we heard of him he was in New Zealand getting himself into an absolute load of trouble.’
Short silence for commiseration.
‘And Washington?’ I ask.
‘Oh my God, fucking awful, Nat’ – with an even wider smile – ‘civil wars breaking out like measles all over the shop and you never know who’s leaning which way for how long and who’s for the chop tomorrow. And no Thomas Wolsey to hold the ring. A couple of years ago we were America’s man in Europe. All right, spotty, not always easy. But we were in there, part of the package, outside the euro, thank God, and no wet dreams about unified foreign policies, defence policies or what have you’ – squeeze of the eyes, chortle. ‘And that was our special relationship with the United States for you. Sucking away